Beth
Beth has been using communication aids since she was 4 years old. Throughout childhood she has worked through a range of dynamic screen devices, initially symbol-based and later text-based. Beth has been using a Lightwriter® several years now, as she finds it suits her needs as an active teenager and student. Here is her story:
I have been using a high tech communication aid since I was 4. My first one, a DynaVox, arrived in time for me to start school. It was the right one for me then because I couldn’t read and write. It did take me a long time to want to use it because at home Mum and Dad understood me, in time my teaching assistant and friends at school also understood what I was saying. I was also using a computer for all my class work and everyday doing physio, OT and SLT, so as well as learning to be at school I was always very busy.
When I was 7 Mum made me start bringing my device home every day and we began to play lots of games with it, soon it became much easier to use it and I often used it if I needed to give Mum or Dad context when we were talking. At school it was still a challenge as my teaching assistant often translated for people what I was saying.
At 8 I found word prediction on the DynaVox and suddenly it was simple to say what I wanted, my reading and writing were quite good and so spelling was my choice of way forward.
I was in year 4 when Mum and the IT Consultant started planning how I would be working in mainstream secondary school. After a couple of false starts by early in Year 6 I was trialling a Lightwriter® and using a laptop. That’s when everything seemed to gel. I could take the Lightwriter® with me everywhere and we hoped the teachers in secondary would find it easy to help me because they all had laptops themselves and the Lightwriter® looked like a familiar keyboard.
Since getting the Lightwriter® I have had so much more confidence to do many things. I regularly make presentations and have been lucky enough to present in Germany, Canada and Greece as well as here in the UK. I love the way I can use the new SL40 to programme notes and speeches and I have the ability to text meaning I can be just like my friends without having to fiddle with a mobile phone which is difficult to hold.
I’m now 15, I’ve changed schools to a specialist boarding school where they understand AAC and I’m getting on well with studying for my GCSEs. I get good support from my County IT person too, I have an eye-gaze system to use in English to help me to work more independently, I’m doing both English Language and English Literature. I also have a new Tablet to take around to all lessons so we don’t have to set things up specially when I get there, I will use it for homework and the big advantage is I don’t have to worry about sharing in our school bungalow when others need to do homework too. It has the same voice as my Lightwriter® so I like it that if I have to speak class work for the first time ever it uses ‘my voice’.
Earlier this year I got a new wheelchair, I am really enjoying going out completely on my own to the shops and now on the bus to town to meet friends. I’m never on my own for very long but its great to be like everyone else. With the Lightwriter® people know what I want and I can let Mum know where I am and what time I will be home.
At home and with people who know me I still use speech to communicate, I always use gesture and facial expressions whenever I have something to say. If it’s not suitable to use the Lightwriter®, which doesn’t happen often, I use an alphabet card I designed myself, air write or use pen and paper. Whatever the circumstances I always make myself understood, I wouldn’t be without the Lightwriter®, it’s ‘my baby’.
Check out my NEW website, its up and working but definitely work in progress!
http://www.bethmoulam.com
